Jeanie Tomasko

Jeanie Tomasko

BIO:jeanie tomasko n. [g-knee tuh-mah-sco, origin: midwest] : as in person, place or thing born and residing in Wisconsin a: lover of autumn, dictionaries, lowercases, suitcases and horsing around b: prone to brake for herons, coffee, novelty machines filled with shiny (M)adonnas, long periods of silence c: makes a mean guacamole and occasionally enjoys dusting d: married to steve tomasko who is responsible for all of the info at : jeanietomasko.com

PUBLICATIONS:

The Collect of the Day -- Bent Paddle Press, 2017. Limited edition of 126 hand sewn chapbooks. $12. Order from Jeanie's website jeanietomasko.com

Violet Hours -- Taraxia Press, 2016, 40 pp. Limited edition of 100 hand sewn chapbooks with French covers.$13.00 +$2.00 s&h from Taraxia Press (http://fibitz.com/taraxia/index.html) or from Jeanie's website. In these poems, meet Violet, a disquieting little girl who investigates her surroundings with a clinical eye for the morbid and bizarre.

(Prologue) -- A poetry / story hybrid thingy with artwork by Judith Bellinghausen Mayer. Winner of the 2013 Concrete Wolf Editor's Choice award. Concrete Wolf, 2015, 61 p. $10. Order from the publisher (http://concretewolf.com/) or send an email to Jeanie.

Poetry

Our Lady of State Street

So I go to this reading down at the bookstore and afterwards meet a friend of a friend. She’s unlocking her bike and I notice a shiny decal on the crossbar half under a long sticker. Holy, I say. It’s the green Virgin of Guadalupe, # 4 out of 10. I have Her too, along with #s 2, 5, and 9. She wants more, she says. She got this one in a gumball machine in the Sauk City Mexican grocery. That’s where I’ve been going for my Virgins, but it’s too late, things have changed up a bit. And I tell her about the conversion to Minions and Skulls and Tattoos of Biker Chicks. She prefers Virgins, I can tell, as Our Lady shines, there on her crossbar, sparkling. Our Lady. Our Lady of State Street. Our Lady of Biker Chicks. Our Lady, bless her ride home.

Published in concis

Still Life with Squirrel

The thing is it doesn’t matter whether Good Friday is in Spanish or English. I mean because you don’t have to know the words. Either way the church is filled with love and grief. Someone will call for their mother because children do. A man will take the cross down and then lie down beside it with his keys and wallet in his pocket because grief has no timetable. Once I was taken down by an African musician. Words I didn’t know I knew sang about longing. What is language, anyway? Animals look you in the eye. Steve says how do animals know about eyes? My friend is going to the Spanish service because her co-worker called in sick and she can’t leave work for the English one. She talks to the squirrels on her way in to work at the County. They look her in the eye with a language they have hammered out together. What I tell her is it doesn’t matter if the squirrels are Spanish.

Published in Right Hand Pointing

Crossword Sonnet Haiku Puzzle

1. (Across) &2. (Down) I want ___3. A way of saying now, or4. Moon’s light or, shoulder5. Weightless, shining 6. It’s ___,7. Just after August8. Late at night9. Simply, the10. (Sounds like) weigh(11. Across: Same as 9.)12. (Down) somewhere inside ribs13. The way the (12 Down) _____14. __ and on

And in this pale light late September evening the way the heart holds on